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The Ministry of Healing
Abstract
In most Protestant denominations of the present time there is growing interest in the possibility of healing by spiritual means. Those who speak and write on this subject make it clear that it is no new thing they desire to do: their aim is to recover the lost healing ministry of the Early Church.
Ellen White, "one of the more important and colorful figures in the history of American religion" was a prolific black writer born in 1827 in the U.S. State of Maine. For over 70 years, she produced more than one hundred thousand handwritten pages on topics such as healthy lifestyle, ethics, education and religion. While the body as subject has been often neglected in favor of the mind by philosophers and thinkers, Ellen White subverted the religion and philosophy of the nineteenth century by claiming the balance between body, mind and spirit - principally through a balanced diet. According to Ellen White, the body care as a whole was absolutely necessary for the cognitive growth and strengthening of all other areas of life, including moral and spiritual life. This paper primarily intends to analyze selected texts of Ellen White from her biography and secondary and experimentally to establish a dialogue with the issue of body treatment in the pioneering works of the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Chapter 2 of Women in Ministry tries to explain why there are no women priests in Israel. Its author, an Old Testament scholar, maintains that the ab- sence of female priests in ancient Israel cannot be used as an argument against women's ordination.1 The author states that he approaches the Bible through "exegetical research." This, he explains, means that he "will not move from a priori definitions or from theological positions" but will seek an answer to his question "by listening to the biblical word in regard to its historical and theological contexts as it describes and signifies the institution of priesthood."2 In other words, he tries to be as objective as possible. He gives two reasons for the absence of women priests in Israel: First, a reac- tion against the ancient Near Eastern culture where priestesses were often associ- ated with sacred prostitution; second, the nature of priestly work in sacrificing animals, thus associating the priests with death and sin. Such priestly labor, he explains, was incompatible with the physiological nature of the woman, tradi- tionally connected with "life and messianic pregnancy."3
A population-based sample of Seventh-Day Adventists was studied to determine the relationship between vegetarian status, body mass index (BMI), obesity, diabetes mellitus (DM), and hypertension, in order to gain a better understanding of factors influencing chronic diseases in Barbados. A systematic sampling from a random start technique was used to select participants for the study. A standard questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic and lifestyle characteristics, to record anthropometrics and blood pressure measurements, and to ascertain the hypertension and diabetes status of participants. The sample population consisted of 407 Barbadian Seventh-Day Adventists (SDAs), who ranged in age from 25 to 74 years. One hundred fifty-three (37.6%) participants were male, and 254 (62.4%) were female, and 43.5% were vegetarians. The prevalence rates of diabetes and hypertension were lower among long-term vegetarians, compared to non-vegetarians, and long-term vegetarians were, on average, leaner than non-vegetarians within the same cohort. A significant association was observed between a vegetarian diet and obesity (vegetarian by definition P=.04, self-reported vegetarian P=.009) in this population. Other components of the study population lifestyle should be further analyzed to determine the roles they may plan in lessening the prevalence rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.
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